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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
Significant violence throughout; shootings and deaths depicted with Hemingway's characteristic directness
Language
Some
Adult language including period-appropriate racist language in the period American setting
Sexual Content
Some
Adult content in Harry's marriage and the novel's secondary storylines
Substance Use
Some
Drinking throughout in the Key West setting; prohibition-era rum-running is the plot
Emotional Intensity
Some
The fatalism of a man who sees no good options — and the Depression's particular American desperation — gives the novel its political weight
What this book is about
Ernest Hemingway's only novel set in the United States follows Harry Morgan, a charter fisherman who is forced into smuggling and gun-running between Key West and Cuba during the Depression. The novel is darker and more politically engaged than Hemingway's other work; the violence is significant and the ending is brutal. Period-appropriate racist language is present. Some of Hemingway's most direct prose.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Period-appropriate racist language
Reader Verification
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